


Devil You Know

by obviousAuthor



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Bill Cipher Being Bill Cipher, Coming of Age, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, M/M, Other, Possessive Behavior, Slow Burn, To be honest, Triangle Bill Cipher, Unhealthy Relationships, haha are you invading my dreams???? ....that's kind of gay bro...., not really I mean just time has passed, oddly wacky, theyre 15 going on 16 now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:54:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 17,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24386266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obviousAuthor/pseuds/obviousAuthor
Summary: Dipper faces the inevitable, and then is promptly courted by the inevitable. Bill Cipher is evil, and he is in love with Dipper Pines, and these two things do not cancel out in the way that one might hope. Meanwhile, Mabel tries her best despite all evidence pointing to its futility; it's just in her nature.(previously titled 'Negative Capability')
Relationships: Bill Cipher/Dipper Pines, Dipper Pines & Mabel Pines
Comments: 55
Kudos: 243





	1. Replay

Bill Cipher came into existence the first time with the theatrics of a universe being born. Energy and time and space coalesced, becoming real through him, and through the will of his own, he became real. If time was linear, Bill Cipher predated the line. If it was a cycle, Bill was the axis upon which the wheel was spun.

The second time was a little less dramatic, but if you asked Bill, and he was inclined towards honestly in that particular millennia, he would tell you it was much more memorable.

Unfathomable creation becomes a bit routine for a being of pure energy. It’s a rerun of a good show; comfortable, and pleasant, but leaving you with no less and no more than you had before.

  
The nature of creation is that before it, there must be nothing.

And so, Bill Cipher came to from the sweet and silent bliss of nonexistence. It was an important exercise in the novel experience of confusion.

  
For observers predisposed to a linear set of events; it went a little like this.  
First, he was nothing.

  
Then, he was something, and it was unremarkable; just another monumental non-event in the abyss of Bill Cipher’s being.

  
It was entirely boring. It was entirely unfamiliar. It was so interesting.  
He would have to write Stanley a Thank-You card. A real nice one, with the implanted song-chip and giftcard. Bill so rarely got to experience something as exciting as a challenge.

  
He brushes off the stray stardust and adjusts his bricks. Hopefully, people haven’t become too acclimated to happy dreams.

* * *

In 1888, Alfred Nobel, inventor of the explosive commonly known as TNT, read his own obituary and promptly was confronted with the nebulous concept of his own legacy. Disgusted the harm he had inflicted upon the human race, he created the Nobel Prize in the hopes that it would inspire and honor others to not make his mistakes.

  
There are some parallels here. For example, Bill Cipher now must also confront his own legacy as he views the mummified husk of his previous form lying on the nondescript forest floor somewhere in central Oregon. Or, to be exact, somewhere in central Oregon as it is recreated in the dreaming mind of one Dipper Pines.

  
There are also some key differences between Nobel and Cipher’s stories. Personally, Cipher could do with a little more resentment in his “eulogy”, so to speak. This place, surrounded by pines as towering and stoic as any others, was a bit of a mindscape backwater, so to speak. Hell, he couldn’t find evidence of a worn neuron path to this traumatic little locale anywhere.

  
Well. That wasn’t quite true. Bill sits back in a tree and watches as a figure approaches the glade in the trees, the dreamed grass and dirt under his sneakers packed from frequent travel. It looks like somebody had missed him.

* * *

Dipper Pines is over Bill Cipher. Really, he is. He says so to Mabel and Stan and Stanley and Wendy and Soos, and Dipper doesn’t think of himself as a liar.  
Dipper does not see triangles where there are none, does not have to cover the face of the bill (bill. Bill. Bill. BillBillbillbill-) when buying things, so that he doesn’t have to see that all-knowing providence peeking up at him.  
Lots of teenagers beg their parents for credit cards. It’s a symbol of freedom and adulthood, a tangible expression of their control over their own destiny. A sign of the life and person they are rushing towards, running to embrace with open arms.

  
Dipper is a liar, because he’s definitely running, but it’s not towards anything.  
Dipper wants to go home. Dipper isn’t sure what home is anymore, but he knows that it isn’t Piedmont, California.  
‘Home’ usually has such nice connotations, he thinks. He sees the other students writing, casually putting down generic Hallmark-card descriptions, some more genuine than others. He could do what half the other emotionally-repressed students do in these first-day-of-school icebreakers, write something that's sweet and commonplace and means nothing at all. That’s usually what he does.

  
Dipper Pines is getting so tired of lying, he wants to admit. For just a moment, he allows himself this tiny piece of rebellion against his own charade, this one bit of cathartic honesty.

  
_Home is where you keep coming back to, no matter what._ -Dipper Pines

If he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine that the linoleum is the worn grass path his mind knows so well.

  
The teacher has a wind chime above her desk, an abstract amalgamation of triangles glistening in the light from the window. Dipper looks back down, swallows, something sticky and sinking that never makes it all the way down. He flips over the post-it note with his response and concentrates on scribbling on the cardboard-back of his notebook. Around the pencil, his knuckles are a tight white.

* * *

In a reconstruction of a forest glade, somewhere at the center of a mind, a boy walks a path he has walked many times before. This time, for the first in a while and no time at all, he has a witness. If a third observer were to take in the scene, their first approximation of the situation might be the distinct feeling of the inevitability of it all.

But there is no third witness, just the boy and this being in a place neither of them can let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pavement is rain-slick, a mosaic of bright-spots like shattered glass. There is not a person in sight.   
> You’re waiting. You get the feeling you’re going to be waiting for a long, long time.


	2. (Re) Meet-Cute

Mabel loves Gravity Falls, she really does. She loves sleepovers with Candy and Grenda, she loves the cute supernatural boys that sometimes come with a body count, she even has a disgruntled affection for the greasy diner and it’s steadfast refusal to have an internet connection in the second decade of the 21st century.

But she loves lots of other things too. She loves Piedmont, with its abundance of restaurants that use words like “antioxidants” and “vegan-friendly” in the menus and the pep rallies and games of her new highschool, a place where everything is dramatic but not very mysterious, and the source of her problems is almost never an ancient curse or a dozen gnomes in a suit.  
This sort of attitude is one she wishes Dipper could adopt. In between parties and studying and clubs, she worries about her brother.

  
He seems stuck in limbo, perhaps not as literally as the time she accidentally sent him into a coma and had to awkwardly peck his forehead after an unusually flustered Wendy and a typically mortified Candy had both failed, but in limbo nonetheless.

  
Mabel loves Gravity Falls, she really does, but Dipper lives for the place. He views his time in Piedmont as a sort of doctor’s waiting room he has to endure in between summers in Oregon.

  
Mabel hates Gravity Falls, just a little bit, because now there is something that Dipper knows and needs more than his twin sister.

  
She’s not jealous, she’s just facing the facts, just facing the triangles she finds doodled where he’s been, just facing the countdown forwards summer he keeps over his bed where they used to anxiously tally the time until their shared birthday.

  
But Mabel is a busy girl, and she doesn’t have much time to think about dream demons and prophecies and an apocalypse that feels to her like just another painful and distant dream.  
But sometimes, in the rare quiet moments when she wipes away the familiar eye forgotten in the steam of the shower door, when she sees the photos of a time when Dipper was hers tucked in between the pages of a dusty book, when she flirts and dates and comes home to find Dipper huddled in his literary fort against sleep, or worse, gone with the rumpled sheets cold- well. Sometimes Mabel isn’t able to stop herself from knowing that for the first time in her life, she is very, very alone.

* * *

He is staring at the corpse again. Or, the memory of a corpse. The stone husk of an entity that tried to kill him, his sister and everyone and anything he ever loved.

  
The school counselor had recommended this, separating the real from the unreal. “Bad dreams,” he had said, with the gaze of a compassionate person run too thin, “...are a very common problem among people your age. I want you to know that there is nothing wrong with you-” He had leveled Dipper with a practiced soulful gaze, and gave him the reassuring smile of a person who had experience with every horror except his own. “-you, well.”  
The counselor had reached out to brush Dipper’s hand, and he jerked it away nervously, balled it in the hem of his shirt, could feel the sweat of his hand, could feel the stretch of his skin.

  
“You are not alone.” Dipper had looked helplessly into his eyes then, and known that the man honestly believed it. 

  
But Dipper is alone. He experiences this truth with the sort of ache that can only come from knowing empirically of it’s absolute veracity. It is a unique and terrible thing not to feel loneliness as a thing, but to know it as a fact.

  
And he knows just how real dreams really are. He knows it in the phantom pricks of pain in his hands, in the confused voice of the school nurse after he had a panic attack from seeing an old black-and-white film bit in history class.  
It never really changes, this scene. 3 summers of the supernatural, of mysteries and mishaps, and still here was Bill Cipher, peering at him from everywhere within his own subconscious.

He was the inevitable, the base denominator for whoever the hell Dipper was.

He never breathed, in these dreams. Just felt the heavy air in his lungs, constantly waiting for the exhale.

“Come here often?” Bill Cipher asks from somewhere behind him, his voice resonating with the distinctive crackle of the universe retreating from the eldritch and being cruelly snapped back every second.

Dipper feels breath leave his phantom lungs, felt the familiar and ancient thrum under his skin. The breath is out. It is with a strange form of relief, swimming among the fear and awe and anger, that Dipper finally turns to see Bill Cipher come home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _  
> Your hands, your fingertips, your bottle of Soda, rim meeting lips as the high-noon-sun makes the glass sweat white.  
>  You are the place where a memory begins. _


	3. California Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @dreamscreep on tumblr is my beta! shoutout to them for that

Dipper knows, logically, that nothing could really prepare him for the moment he turned around. 

He knows,sensibly, that Bill is there. This carries implications that his mind would usually be racing to unpack; Bill is back, Bill is alive (could Bill even _die?_ ), Bill has decided to visit _his_ dreams. But in the moment before he turns, Dipper feels oddly peaceful. Perhaps it’s the abated rustle of the pine-bristles as time slows, as color bleeds out of, _no,_ as Bill _bleeds into_ his dreamscape, perhaps his mind is finally confronting a situation that it cannot handle, and is shutting off his dual powers of anxiety and panic entirely. 

Perhaps it’s that released breath in his lungs, like the universe has been holding a breath it can finally let go. Dipper had always known, on somewhere on the spectrum between conscious acknowledgment and repressed _knowing_ depending on the day, that Bill was an inevitability that they had only managed to desperately postpone. 

“You done reflecting there, Pine Tree? Geez, you’re more in your head than I am! Get it? Because I’m invading your dream!” Bill interrupts his moment, because _of course_ he does. 

“Tik-tok, time is dead! Phew, I’ve really missed saying that.” Bill continues, because he’s an asshole. 

Dipper turns around, and Bill is there. And Bill _is_ there, not simply occupying imaginary space but robbing it for spare change and assuming its identity. It has already been established that this isn’t something Dipper could have prepared for. No corrections are to be issued. 

Dipper _feels_. He wants to scream. He wants to run. He wants to wake up, to keep dreaming, and to tell Mabel that he loves her. That he’s very, very sorry for something he hasn’t done quite yet. 

“You’re back.” He says. He feels a little stupid for saying something so obvious, but it’s the sort of stupid he feels when he can’t think of something funny enough to say in response to someone, not the sort of stupid he feels when he knows that he is an insignificant ant about to be crushed by an entity with a natural right to superiority to everything has ever has been or could be. So far, so good. 

“Gee, I’d hoped for a little more screaming, at least. Must be a little rusty.” He stretches his apparently-vestigal legs, adding in a little squeaking sound-effect for measure. 

“No, no- no, you’re just. Well.” He stops, and _now_ he’s getting a little sweaty. Why the fuck can he sweat in a dream? That shouldn’t be allowed, he thinks. Finally, he gestures to the scene around them, to the well-traveled path and the tomb of trees surrounding Bill’s statue; the gesture is meant to convey something he’s not sure he can put into words. Bill will understand. If he doesn’t, he can go in his head and figure out what he means himself. The thought is terrifying, and a little funny, which is a pretty decent descriptor of Bill in general. 

Words come to him, and he’s not sure they’re exactly what he means, isn’t sure that what he means is something that he can say in a language, but they’re close enough. 

“I _know_ you, Bill.” He says, and it feels like saying any other words. _Apple. Chocolate. Photosynthesis. I know you, Bill. Coffee. Frog. I know you._ That’s the funny thing about saying things; it sometimes feels remarkable, how easy it is to say the ones that matter. 

* * *

Dipper wakes up. He go wake and tell Mabel, he knows. He shrugs off the covers, uncurls his limbs, and sits. The moonlight shines in through his square bedroom window, as watery and beautiful as on any other night. The curtains do not rustle with a conspicuous breeze. Dipper rises to his feet, sees the clock on the nightstand read 2:23 in the corner of his sight. 

He slips into the hallway, and peeks into the open doorway of Mabel’s adjacent room. She’s in her bed. He watches for a moment, as her shoulders rise and fall peacefully, listens to the whistle of her slight snore.

Everything is normal, almost conspicuously so. Something almost like disappointment trickles into his veins. Even stronger, though, is his relief. 

He will have to address Bill, and Gravity Falls won’t wait forever, but it can wait for tonight. In the dead of night in Piedmont, a night much like any other, Dipper makes himself a cup of hot cocoa and goes outside. In the distance, a dog barks, Mabel sleeps with a little whistle in her breath, and Dipper listens to the click of his probably-expired candy cane as it bumps into the sides of his mug. 

He considers climbing to the roof, really play into the indie-movie-about teenage-disillusionment sort of mindset, but looks at the unsteady trellis, his bare feet and his steaming mug, and relents. 

And so Dipper has one calm, nice and entirely normal night, and lets himself believe time isn’t dead quite yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have known your fate your entire life, but now you will live it. The oracle, they tell you. Oracle, oracle, oracle, it is a frenzied song in your ears. The oracle is dying. You feel for the first time that you may begin to be alive.  
> The temple is upon a hill. The local kids call it "the mountain". You call it that too. The oracle doesn't, you've been told. The oracle has seen real mountains. You crave something you cannot comprehend.  
> The walk is short. Your entire life previous has been the arduous journey; this is just a footnote. Vines wrap around trees, and if you squint, they appear to be hands, grasping for life in the shade of the forest underbrush. Withered plant matter crumbles under your steps.  
> The oracle is very, very old. You cannot see their face. It is not covered, you do not think, but you cannot look. You cannot know this being and then watch it disappear. There are lots of things you can't do, and only one thing the oracle can't. A deep inhale blossoms in your lungs. The oracle's breaths are halted, every whistle of air a small victory in a war that is being decisively lost.  
> The oracle's hands are those withered vines, not quite gripping your wrist so much as trying to maintain a dwindling place of touch for just a moment longer. Every breath a battle, every touch a letter home.  
> The hands are too weak to write. You wonder if the oracle is as well. You hope they are, because the idea of being an ember alight within slowly encroaching frost is too terrible for you to bear. The oracle has bore many things, you have heard. Deep down, you know this is the final triumph they will achieve.  
> There is a note, falling into your relaxed palm. Curled and rough, the paper is possibility. The last battle of the war is fought. The victor was decided from the onset. The hand falls limp to the sheets below.  
> 


	4. Schrodinger's Piedmont

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> black lives matter.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKo8OrBdLz8

He has to tell her. Dipper knows this, feels it poking at him like the points of the triangles he sees where there aren’t any. He knows it in the pinprick-scars on his forearms, in the terrified screams of the people of Gravity Falls that he’ll never forget. Bill is trouble, bigger trouble than possibly anything else in this dimension. 

He knows that. He’s _not_ fucking stupid, okay? He doesn’t trust Bill or like him or anything like that. _But you know him_ , a voice whispers in his skull. He curses as he fails to avoid a drop of simmering bacon grease. Right on the fork scars. The universe sure ain’t subtle. Or maybe he’s just seeing patterns where the universe left nothing of note. The human brain is, after all, an overzealous English professor with a penchant for annotation in every margin.

Reason. Dipper is reasonable. In fact, he’s probably the most rational investigator of the supernatural there is, he thinks, except for maybe Ford. 

Nah, it’s him, because Ford _trusted_ Bill, let him believe that Bill _cared_ about him, was his _friend._

“Dip-Dop? Wow, you’re up early.” Mabel calls from the bottom of the stairs, in a voice that’s bright tone and volume borders on the uncanny valley at 6:15 in the morning. 

She yawns in the performative way that someone who has just had a great night of sleep does, in case anyone forgot about how sleeping was what they were previously doing. 

A hand darts around his arm, quick as a comet and comes away with a simmering piece of bacon for a prize. 

“Hey!” he protests in the performative way that someone who was cooking bacon with the expectation of relinquishing some of it does. 

He turns off the stove and plates the meat, one for himself and one for Mabel. He leaves a few strips in the pan for any parental stragglers and joins her at the table. 

Mabel is sitting with her knees bent and legs propped up on the table, and only she can make sitting like a pretzel in a straight-backed chair such an effortless and casual picture of nonchalant youth. She raises a mischievous eyebrow, reaching forward to grab a piece of bacon to stuff in her mouth. 

“What do _you_ want, hm?” She asks, all-too-happy to be bribed with breakfast. 

Dipper chews a bite of bacon mechanically, trying not to meet her eyes. The grains of the table are a churning storm, the spiraling motes of a tabletop galaxy. How the hell did he broach this? _Hey, remember that time an evil brain-demon almost killed us, everyone we loved and also the universe? Well, he’s back._

“What is it? Oh, you’re being shy!” Mabel rights herself in her chair to lean forward conspiratorially. “Want me to talk to a girl for you?” She laughs and bats her eyes dramatically. She leans back and pretends to inspect her nails, slyly casual. “Or a boy. I won’t judge.” 

“Mabel, you remember our first summer at Gravity Falls, right?” Dipper begins, and it’s as much a bridge to a difficult conversation as a genuine check, because memory-erasure is the sort of nonsense that might have happened at been pushed under the rug in a world with a town full of curses and fantastical creatures. 

Mabel’s eyes narrow and she sighs, her joyful bubble of crush-conspiracy popped. 

“Get me some Mabel-Juice first.” She juts her chin in the direction of the fridge and Dipper jumps at the chance to postpone the inevitable conversation ever so slightly.

Four years have done little to tone down Mabel’s signature prescription for Type-2 Diabetes. Mabel, however, has learned to market it to the sort of Instagram crowd who loves rainbow hair and sprinkle-bagels and other impractical but whimsical things on their screens, so now it’s in an antique glass pitcher she picked up for six bucks at the Alameda Flea Market instead of a yellowed tupperware-brand jug with a missing lid. 

Dipper eyes the floating plastic dinosaurs skeptically and swirls it a bit to disperse the settled glitter at the bottom. He pours her a glass, wrinkling his nose slightly at a smell best compared to cotton candy factory not adhering to OSHA ventilation guidelines. 

“So,” she begins, once she’s received her juice. “Gravity Falls.” 

She’s begun to chew on one the plastic dinosaurs with the corner of her mouth, an absentminded little quirk she adopted after her braces were removed and she didn’t have to use wax anymore but still got the compulsion. Her nails are painted with the variety of a Crayola Ultimate Crayon pack, the one with the little built-in sharpener. The remnants of neon-eyeshadow that she can never fully wipe away tint the creases of her eyelids. Her hair is a rat’s nest, but in the bright light of the kitchen the flyaway hairs form a messy sort of halo around her; Mabel is made up of so many little things. Dipper loves her so much it hurts, even if she’s loud and a little pushy and shares nothing in common with him but their birthday and their face. 

A heavily bedazzled phone vibrates against the table, and she checks it with the lack of subtlety he’s come to expect from his sister. She types out a quick response, and although he isn’t particularly interested in reading whatever she and her friends usually text about, the liberal use of excited capslock and emoji spamming isn’t lost in his observation. Something painful flicks against the cage of his ribs, and he knows he can’t do it. She’s so happy. His sister doesn’t drag Gravity Falls outside of the summer months, and he won’t do it for her. 

Hey, he can only mess with his dreams, right? Summer’s not for two months, and Dipper is a chronic insomniac anyway. (This diagnosis and Bill are probably related, but Dipper doesn’t want to think about that. His odds look a lot better blind.) 

Two months before Bill can even properly try anything, before both of them are back on home-turf. 

Two months will have to be enough. He’s worked with less, when it comes to the homicidal and supernatural. _But nothing quite like Bill_ , the nervous and unfortunately rational part of his mind whispers. Dipper tries very hard to unthink that thought, because he knows Bill would _love_ being considered a league of his own, and it’s far too fucking early in the morning to give him the satisfaction. 

Mabel glances up at him, half-surprised to still see him there. She glances at the rapidly moving wall of text, probably one of many group chats, and back to her brother. 

“It’s okay.” He tells her, and she grins and mumbles a thanks, ruffling his hair on the way out. She sneaks one of his bacon strips off his plate as she leaves, probably to join some video call with entirely too much pre-noon karaoke and far too little volume control. “It wasn’t important.” he finishes, but already all that’s left is the memory of a girl, left in the tenacious particles of glitter coating her glass and the sweet smell of fruitsy shampoo in the air. 

Relief and guilt weigh on Dipper’s shoulders in equally immense measures. He’s not sure he did the right thing, but he’s not sure there’s really a right thing at all in the cards. He’s not sure that if there was, that he’s strong or smart or good enough to do it. He’s not sure if his Calculus-A homework is due today or tomorrow, and he really hopes it’s tomorrow. 

As he gets ready for school with reluctance in equal proportion to his sister’s enthusiasm, Dipper can’t shake the feeling of being watched. Maybe it’s just him. Maybe it’s not. 

Piedmont isn’t exactly the type of place where he can watch back, anyhow. He’s not sure if this is a reassurance or a sentencing. Maybe it’s both, but Dipper’s not an irrational enough sort of being to dwell on conflicting things like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A Poem Dedicated to this Tree, and All Others Like it; https://californiathroughmylens.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Tree-Growing-out-of-a-rock.jpg**
> 
> _It’s not a good life,  
>  Sparse needles and wood.  
> But it’s a life.   
> Existing in adversity,   
> Just to prove that it could. _


	5. Pinus Ponderosa

“What do you want?” The man begs nobody in particular; perhaps only wailing to his own subconscious. The words are only distorted by his own sobbing, his stiff-stitched lips not impeding his voice because  _ this is a dream, _ and logic is whatever Bill wants it to be, and A need not lead to B, at least not in a straight line. 

“The same thing I always want-” Bill responded cheerfully, although the man couldn’t hear him. Not for this one; it would ruin the ambience. “To be entertained!” 

There really is nothing like a good nightmare. Mohammed Ibrahim, 37. Deeply rooted insecurities regarding his own piety. Betrayed and scornful family and friends, torture, and a face stitched into a grotesque stepford smile. Bam! Easy-peasy. Religious fear was always fun, because Bill could really get abstract with the whole thing. Obviously, the simplicity of “snakes” or “naked at school” had their charms, but with religion, the dreamer met you halfway and did a lot of the work for you. They  _ wanted _ a punishment. Bill didn’t invade, he was  _ invited.  _

What happened next, however, was less of an invitation and more of an abduction. One moment, he was making a hallway full of mirrors for this guy to trip and stumble in, aghast in horror at his own artificial-grin, and the next he was in a sun-dappled old-growth forest, imagined somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. 

Lots of forests look basically like other forests. Forests containing Ponderosa Pines less so, the tree a distinct and charming sort of gangly that looks like it might get shoved into an abnormally large locker by it’s arboreal peers, or maybe help you with your algebra homework. If trees could have teenage acne, a Ponderosa Pine would be first in line for the forest dermatologist. 

Of course, the trees had been that dorky before Bill had started associating them with Mason ‘Dipper’ Pines, but, hey, the affiliation exists for a reason. 

And so, omniscence aside, Bill knows exactly where he is the moment the dimension has decided he will be there. (He’d file a complaint for breach of the chain-of-command, but Interdimensional Entity Resources still had a grudge for the last time he’d gotten drunk and pulled space-time inside-out like a sock. Petty no-fun bastards.) 

Bill Cipher is in Dipper’s forest. 

Okay, so this is probably a weird summoning, and as fun as paranoid religion-related nightmares are, anything involving Gravity Falls, or the Pines or, especially, above anything else  _ Pine Tree _ is infinitely better, because it was something a lot rarer than entertaining; it’s always something  _ interesting _ . 

And so if the last time he had taken an interest in Gravity Falls had gotten him banished from existence entirely for a while, so be it. He’d had worse hangovers. (He hadn’t, really, because consequences aren’t really Bill’s thing, but the exclusivity of death was special in it’s own right.) 

Except, with the sort of realization that in his omniscience isn’t so much a realization rather than a simultaneous knowing existing alongside the original observation, Bill knows this isn’t a summoning. Not an intentional one, anyway. 

It’s not easy to accidentally summon  _ anything _ . Summoning in a process entrenched heavily and inherently in intent. It’s near-impossible to accidentally summon a dream-demon. Summoning Bill Cipher is inconceivable. 

As Bill likes to say, ‘Inconceivable spells for a good time in a language long dead!’. 

“Call my number, Pine Tree?” His voice rings in the very substance of the place, bleeding from the trees and humming through the ground. 

“ _ Ouagh _ !”, a high-pitched yelp sounds from somewhere nearby, and there he is; Dipper Pines, 15. The boy has half-jumped off the ground, jolted in surprise; his arms are braced in front of himself in a crude attempt at a fighting stance. 

Bill laughs and floats lazily into the reconstructed clearing, idling a few feet above Dipper’s dream-form. 

Within the span of about six seconds, Bill watches Dipper cycle through the entire spectrum of human emotion, each one expressing itself clearly if briefly in the stage of his face. 

Six seconds is actually quite a bit of time; it fits car crashes, Vines, chemical reactions, words that change and ruin lives, and a million dollars-worth of advertising space in the Superbowl broadcast. This is to say, that six seconds is a long time to silently witness someone pantomime the entirety of the human experience. A long, awkward time.

“Are you done there?” Bill asks, just as Dipper is wrapping up the whole performance with a more permanent stay in the realm of anger and determination. 

“ _ Yes! _ ” Dipper snaps. “I was just, uh-” and Bill is amused because the ‘uh’ is filled with more venom than any speech disfluency has to the right to be, “processing. I was processing.” 

Another moment of awkward silence passes; Dipper scuffs the fallen pine-needles and dirt under his shoes, shifts his weight from one leg to the other, and finally sighs- 

“So are you going to like, try to make a deal with me or something?” He asks, his voice a mixture of righteous apprehension and impatience. 

“ _ Wow. _ ” Bill responds, pressing his hands to his bricks in an imitation of a grasp of the heart. “ _ Or something? _ Where’s the enthusiasm, kid?” He waves a monthly-planner into existence. Each of its months is illustrated by a different depiction of medieval torture, leading Dipper to grimace when Bill begins to flip through. 

“Let’s see, apocalypse at 4, murder at 5, oh let’s just throw ‘dream-demon’ in there, right next to the reminder to get the fucking groceries, because I’m such a fucking  _ chore!”  _ The planner bursts into flames. 

Dipper’s eyebrows crease, and it’s cute in the imperfect way of Sharpeis and baby birds and two-seater cars with eccentric paint jobs. 

“Are you actually freaking out over this?” Dipper questions, and then he shakes his head a little like a wet dog to reorient himself. His hair sticks up in little tufts when he does it, and Bill gets the strangest urge to touch them, to smooth them down. Just to see what would happen, to know how the kid would react. 

“Anyway,” Dipper continues, “seriously man, why are you here? Shouldn’t you be out destroying the world or torturing people or whatever?” A beat, and then Dipper throws up his hands hastily. 

“Not that you should be, I mean! Like, murder, torture, world domination, all bad. Just for the record.” He backtracks, glancing around like there’s a hidden crew of reporters ready to misconstrue his statement. 

“Who says I’m not?” Bill responds gleefully, floating to face Dipper, eyes-to-eye, and leaning in close enough for him to see the flashing of human triumph and failure, visions of greek anguish and biblical storms, his own family,  _ Gravity Falls _ , in the slitted pupil. 

“Holy shit.” Dipper whispers, and if he were sitting he would have leapt to his feet, but seeing as he wasn’t, his knees just quivered and jolted a bit before he jumped in action, pacing in tight circles within the little clearing. “Is this some sort of victory gloat? Is my memory wiped? Where’s Mabel?” He begins to tug vigorously at his hair, alternating between wincing at the pain and muttering swears under his breath. 

“Just keep running over your plans for escape out loud, I’m not right here or anything.” Bill notes, reclining sideways as if on a couch and trailing behind his frenzied form at a leisurely pace. 

Dipper shoots the demon a fierce look. “What’s the point? You can read my thoughts anyway, asshole.” 

“Oh, ‘asshole’,” this pejorative Bill says with finger quotes, “- c’mon, you can do better than that, Pine Tree! I’ve heard insults more cutting from priests.” Bill snaps a pink, sloshing drink in a martini glass into one hand, taking little sips from his eye-mouth in between sentences. 

Dipper watches the golden bricks contort around the rim of the glass like a combination between flesh and toxic, pervasive fungus growth. For a moment, he stops, a sheen of fascination in his eyes. His neck begins to burn pink, and he throws himself back into his pacing and muttering with redoubled ferocity. 

“I mean, I guess it’s just part of the expected motions.” Bill muses over Dippers previous comment. He rights himself excitedly, glowing brilliantly. Dipper throws up a hand to shield his eyes with a wince. The martini ends up broken on the forest floor, an unnatural neon-pink against the faded-sepia of the memory. 

“Oh look, littering.” Dipper mutters. 

“You know what?” Bill chirps, dropping himself to Dippers level. The boy takes a wary step back. “I like it! It’s different. You cut straight to the facts of the matter, Pine Tree!” He mimes a chopping motion against the air, each strike emitting a sourceless little wail as they hit their invisible target.

Dipper blinks suddenly, and then sighs. “Oh. That’s it, isn’t it? This is the torture.” He gestures towards Bill. “Kudos, man. It’s like babysitting the world’s most sadistic toddler. 100% effective. Totally sucks ass.” 

Dipper walks to the fossilized Bill-statue and sits down, leaning against it. He scuffs at the dirt beneath him with the toe of his shoe, stubbornly avoiding looking at the dream demon floating nearby. 

“ _ Jeez _ , your plots to escape are really loud, Pine Tree.” Bill comments. 

“In fact,” Dipper continues, ignoring Bills comment, “I bet this isn’t even the real  _ you _ . You’re just a fake-Bill he put here to slowly drive me insane while he parties in the ruins of civilization or something.” 

“That’s a  _ great _ idea, Pine Tree! I’ll keep it in mind for when I do conquer this dimensional plane. Wouldn’t use it on you, though- I like you too much to not give you the real thing.” Bill responds, floating down to Dippers eye-level. “You are wrong, though. Sorry, they can’t all be winners, unless you’re all-knowing.” He adds. A glowing arrow straight out of the Las Vegas strip appears behind the demon, indicating that he, in case you were unaware, is all-knowing.

“That’s exactly what a fake-Bill would say!” Dipper points out frustratedly. 

Bill Cipher does not like to be taken for a fake, for a sham, for something less than completely  _ diabolical _ , and so he grabs the front of Dippers shirt, lifting him up. The boy yelps, grabbing uselessly at the point of contact. 

The demon’s eye glows infernal red. “Could anyone else do  _ this _ ,  _ Pine Tree?”  _ His voice echoes from all around the dreamscape. 

Dipper wakes up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> black lives matter. stream this video to passively donate.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKo8OrBdLz8
> 
> the problem with caves   
> is the drip drip drip drip drip   
> and then my feet slip


	6. Signs

Dipper Pines wakes with one coherent thought asserting itself through the chaotic flood of his mind; _fuck_.

It’s a fitting summary of his current state, and so he thinks and mutters it a generous handful of times more as he shoots out of bed, hits his head on the wall, feels the sweat on his back, gets on shoes and shirt and his hat with anxious, jolty motions. _Fuck, fuck, fuck._

The great thing about ‘fuck’ really, is it’s versatility. It’s one consistent feature is it’s undercurrent of shock, whether it be elation or horror. The rest is up to you. Are you feeling something big? Have you not figured out the rest of it yet? ‘Fuck’ is the word for you. 

Only one is allowed per movie of the PG-13 rating, which is a telling metric of how many limits these movies are allowed to push. 

This one-word thought continues to echo throughout Dipper’s head as he clumsily hauls himself downstairs, shirt on inside-out and shoes untied. 

(Past Mabel’s shut door, bedazzled with glittery signs and posters, like she lives in a teen movie. She probably does; Dippers feeling a little cinematic too, but his film is of a markedly different genre. His movie he’s not sure he’ll survive.) 

Only when he finds himself dipped in the soft, urban sounds of early morning Piedmont and surrounding Oakland clutching a knapsack does another clear thought surface; _This is not Gravity Falls._

His muscle-memory screams for him to go to the woods, to the roof, to _investigate_ , but _this is not Gravity Falls._

Bill Cipher is back, and he is not in Gravity falls. 

The thought seems foreign and wrong; Bill Cipher and his ilk belong somewhere where magic hisses and spits alongside the exhaust pipes of old Ford trucks and artifacts and mystery litter the landscape like weeds.

For the first time since Bill had invaded his dream two nights before, Dipper is able to isolate a single emotion running through his veins to the exclusion of all others; fear.

Dipper is very, very scared. Bill Cipher has always been terrifying, sure, in his own uniquely obnoxious way, but he had been terrifying where it _belonged_ , in a pocket of adventure sequestered from the outside world. He had been yet another impossible thing that could be defeated by their own romantic guts and boot-laces. 

But here in the _real_ world, Bill Cipher is not an adventure or a game. He is a natural disaster bearing down upon a world full of people and consequences, something beyond control or reason. 

Many survivors of catastrophic events and natural disasters recall the surreal quality of it that is rarely portrayed in books or movies; the world is ending, and life goes on. The tornado bears upon your home, and you really have got to pee. The murderer and murderee breath the same breath, the knife kissing skin, and the oven timer beeps in the background. _This is not Gravity Falls_ , and Dipper’s stomach pinches in complaint. 

_It’s weird_ , he thinks as he mechanically pours himself a bowl of cereal, _to be hungry for food you won’t be able to keep down._

Dipper thinks The Magic Tree-House books could have done a better job dealing with the psychological trauma caused by knowing they are in direct chronological vicinity of a highly catastrophic event. 

Everything really takes on a surreal sort of quality, existing in it’s mundaneness while he holds a terrible, terrible secret. 

People laugh and shout around him, someone floods a toilet on the second floor, the tinny loudspeakers announce that yearbook-preorders are now available and Bill Cipher is back. 

The worst part is that he has to pretend everything is normal. It’s not like anyone has particularly high standards for him; he’s a chronic insomniac who frequently looks and acts like hell-half-microwaved. In fact, Dipper is pretty sure no one suspected a thing the previous day when he was jumpy and consumed in his own guilt regarding Mabel. Still, he has to _do things_ , like complete readings and worksheets and turn in assignments. Every action that isn’t Bill Cipher-related feels like busywork before the end. 

_What should I do? What can I do?_ Dipper thinks and thinks and thinks again, and nothing comes up. He could assemble the members of the prophecy, but he would have to call and tell them and Mabel. The prospect curls up in his gut like a dying animal. He just can’t. 

He’s waiting for a sign; _anything_ to follow. He is investigating a crime without a lead, existing in that restless space between the murder and the informant. 

The rather eccentric English teacher is talking about historical fiction as a genre, and normally Dipper likes her (she tolerates his paranoia and inclination towards the paranormal with a nature bordering on fond) but now all her words ring shrill and grating in his ears like a mosquito. 

“Historical Fiction has often been viewed as limiting or juvenile because of the necessity that it adhere to a framework of real-events, but a great writer can use these limitations to produce great art. In fact, one of my favorite pieces of prose in Shakespeare’s work comes from his play ‘Julius Caesar’; here, let me read it for you.” 

She hums slightly as she pulls something up on the projector. The yellowish light paints the white-board in the sepia of a newspaper photo of a missing person; a crack of light streaming onto the tragic and unknown. 

_Between the acting of a dreadful thing_

_And the first motion, all the interim is_

_Like a phantasma or a hideous dream._

_For fuck’s sake,_ Dipper thinks, _I asked for a sign, not a narrator._

 _At least_ , he muses, _Casear got stabbed to death in the end._

Without any direct thought his hand begins to doodle a knife and a triangle on his notebook. He stops himself before he finishes, digging his blunt fingernails into his palm. That was stupid, stupid, stupid. He knows better than to go drawing bad things. The line between a rune and a doodle is surprisingly permeable, he had been forced to discover over his past few years of adventures. 

The nearly finished triangle stares up at him from the paper, crude knife appearing to be a weapon wielded rather a point of demise. Dipper swallows, and then scribbles over it until he tears a hole in the page. 

_Then again_ , he considers miserably. _This is Caesar resurrected. Fool him once..._

It is a subpar metaphor at best. Bill Cipher is basically a competent Caligula more than anything else. 

And so the day goes, slow and miserable and mundane. As he watches the clock anxiously, Dipper is reminded of Bill’s first summoning, of the color dissolving, of the world moving like molasses. 

It doesn’t help. 

Finally, in Calculus AB, he finds his sign. It is the sort available for the reasonable price of $2.99 at specialty teaching stores. It reads: ‘PAST BEHAVIOR IS THE BEST INDICATOR OF FUTURE BEHAVIOR’. These words are superimposed over several pictures of practice worksheets with oversized red F’s scrawled on top, alongside a failed exam. 

_Right_ , Dipper thinks, and it’s bordering on manic. _I have to retrace my proverbial steps._

He rips a piece of paper to hold his place in the Calculus textbook; that, he figures, can wait. He has more important things to study. 

The notebook is flipped to a fresh page. Dipper clicks his pen-nib in and out and in and out and in and out until the girl next to him looks ready to commit homicide.

 _PROPHECY_ , he writes in capital letters near the top. A moment latter, and he draws arrows from this word to two, smaller phrases. _ZODIACS_ and _NATIVE AMERICAN FOLKLORE_. 

The bell rings, and he reluctantly shoves his notebook in his bag. 

His step, though, is lighter by the slightest degree. It’s a bad situation, but he has a lead. 

“Retrace your steps...” The boy mutters to himself until the school-day is over. His pulse is a hummingbird-wing in his wrist and neck; fast, fast, _fast_. 

It’s not exactly that he thinks he’s going to find record of Bill Cipher in the ancient lore of the Bay Area. _This is not Gravity Falls_ , and magical zodiacs are prophecies are few and far between. 

But Dipper has learned over the past few years that half of magic is the ritual itself; retracing his steps, if he does it with enough intention, can hopefully be magic in of itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d like to get a bunch of those terrible teaching posters and line the walls of my home with them like wallpaper. And people will come in and realize they are in hell. Help me do that.  
> 


	7. Discoveries

When Mabel Pines was nine years old, she found a 50 dollar bill in the toe of a ratty sneaker that had been hung by it’s laces on the fence near her school. 

It was the sort of miraculous discovery made possible by the stalwart optimism and peculiarity of her nature. It takes one of many highly specific species of person to make a cash discovery in the cavernous depths of discarded urban footwear.

It could happen by circumstance, discovered by someone too jaded in their pursuit of public order and cleanliness to flinch from the distasteful sight and odor of a used sneaker left to ferment in the rain and sun; a slight rustle as the face of late president Ulysses S Grant meets the ground in a fashion halfway between a float and a flop. 

It could happen by manner of a young child too wonder-eyed and fresh-faced to associate a judgement to things abandoned or unclean. 

It could happen by the industrious ingenuity of a robin, finding something strange and green with which to insulate her nest. 

It could have, but it didn’t; it happened because Mabel Pines isn’t the sort of person who doesn't need qualifiers to curiously shake unsuspecting things without any reasonable expectation of reward.

This event had been highly important in the development of her character; to be rewarded grandly once for peering into the mundane unknown is to develop a lifetime habit of examining her surroundings without any clear goal but the thrill of curiosity and possibility itself. 

It is because of this fact of her nature that she eyes the stack of books her brother had recently checked out from the Oakland Public Library with more than a passing interest. She runs her hand over the cover of the book on top of the stack, flips open the cover, scoffs slightly at the sight of a post-it note covered in her brother’s frantic, slanted handwriting. 

This book has that yellowed stiffness of old pages rarely turned, that sort of highly academic text only sought by rabid enthusiasts and brave researchers for degree theses. She reads the title: “Indian Myths of South Central California" by Kroebler L Alfred. _Huh._

Post-it notes pepper the pages mostly in one section; she flips through the pages, and the book naturally falls open to the heavier chapter. _Ohlone Myths and Legends._

Mabel can’t pretend she knows much about the Ohlone, but she knows they’re the local Amerindian tribe, a piece of information stuck in her brain from elementary school history like old gum under a bleacher. 

And this is _weird,_ because they might live here, but Dipper doesn’t give a shit about Piedmont, or Oakland, or California in general. It’s all _Oregon, Grant County, Gravity Falls_. She frowns, looks closer, scanning the page. 

A name catches her eye, scribbled on a note stuck beside a paragraph in the book- _Bill._ She frowns. 

_Destruction of a previous world--like Bill’s childhood Flatland shit?_ She blinks and reads it again, but it’s just as incomprehensible as the first time. Still, they don’t know many Bills. It could be nothing. He could be scribbling in the margins about someone entirely different than who she’s thinking of. 

But then again, maybe he isn’t. 

She flips through the rest of the annotations, gaining a frantic energy to her motions. By the time she slams the cover shut, panting like she’s run a marathon, one thing is clear; _Bill Cipher is back, or at least Dipper thinks he is._

Mabel likes to take Dipper’s judgement with a grain of salt-- it’s easier that way, since he rarely suspects _good_ or _safe_ things, but she’s like Pandora with that stupid box, knows she won’t like what she sees if she opens it, but her fingers are itching all the same. 

She wonders if this is what Dipper feels like all the time, this restless urge to _discover_ , even when discovery is painted bright and clear like a poisonous frog. 

She used to know these sort of things, feel him like a sixth sense somewhere in her chest, but whatever sensory organ used to know him as well as herself has grown atrophied and numb. It would hurt, she _wishes_ it hurt, but more than anything it’s a terrible _numbness_ where feeling used to thrive. It’s a sailor seeing the same small island shrink every year to the tide-- something as solid as land beneath one’s feet slowly becoming _not_. 

She will do something, there’s no doubt of that-- Mabel is not a worrier, she’s a _doer_. If she doesn’t get her hands dirty, she figures she’s doing something wrong. 

Talking to Dipper is an option like it is an option to do nothing-- she’s not going to stop him from whatever he’s doing with Bill, and if he’s right, at least he’s apparently doing _something._ She can imagine it now, him getting cagey and defensive, her blowing up, a drawn out sibling guerrilla-war that helps no one but the monster who wanted them both dead. 

She wants to solve this problem the way she does most problems--head-on. It’s not exactly the wisest of life philosophies, but she’s long accepted that her brother got the brains-side of the deal. What Mabel has is endless grit, energy, and a staunch belief despite all evidence to the contrary that she can do just about anything. 

Their parents are not light sleepers, and for this Mabel sends a little praise to any interested entities above. Among the rumble of their snores, the rattle of Dad’s bottle of sleeping pills in Mabel’s hand is nothing at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think you have to work to make defenestration _not_ funny.


	8. Jamnia Insomnia

Dipper Pines has not slept in three days, and Bill Cipher is becoming what could loosely be called _agitated_. Generally, meat-sacks sleep in nice, well-defined patterns, and although Bill considers himself a connoisseur of chaos, this is the sort of neatness and order even he can appreciate. They sleep, he trapezes through the mazes of their minds, they wake up, repeat.

Then again, the Pines family has always been peppered with insomniacs. This, Bill will insist, is not personally his fault. Maybe Six Fingers and Pine Tree are predisposed to this sort of lifestyle, he claims. 

It’s important to note that Bill Cipher is regarded as a near-universally unreliable source by everyone who has the presence of mind to know any better. 

The problem lies in the fact that carbon-based entities are so _vulnerable_. Fuck with Bill, fine, sure, ( _not fine, he’s going to vaporize anyone who tries, but that’s not the point_ ), but meat-bags will destroy themselves to make a statement. Usually, Bill finds this funny. But _this_? 

Bill doesn’t get worried in the humanistic sense, but sleep is crucial towards the preservation of Dipper’s physical form, and if he dies Bill _will_ be experiencing lots of what humans tend to call _fury._

At the very least, he figures, nothing ought to be killing Dipper except him. There are so few things in the multiverse that Bill still finds entirely and maddeningly _interesting_ , and he’s not about to let this one slip through his fingers. 

Why the kid is so fascinating, Bill’s not sure. He’s endearingly awkward, and despite common belief, Bill is not indifferent to the concept of cuteness. He’s intelligent in that innovative, frantic way of creatures thinking in minutes and not millenia that if Bill were a more humble eldritch monstrosity of energy, he would admit still manages to occasionally make him work to keep up. And Pine Tree seems to show a natural aptitude for magic that is both flattering and impressive in its own ephemeral way. 

Mostly, though, Bill Cipher likes Dipper Pines for the same infuriating reason as many things in the multiverse: just because. 

It’s a bit like a very powerful magnet, Bill has discovered. Pine Tree is drawn towards Bill and vice versa. The laws of physics are something Bill has several warrants for arrest out for breaking, so the sheer novelty of this attraction is fascinating. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum to Pine Tree’s steadfast refusal to go to bed, Bill is vaguely aware that Shooting Star has been snapping in and out of sleep in rapid succession for the past day or so. 

He’ll let her think he doesn’t know what she’s doing. He has to admit, he’s a little impressed at her ingenuity, everything considered. 

An enemy long-dead had said that was Bill’s greatest flaw-- he likes to wait to see what happens. Bill figures it’s not something a mortal could really understand. Nipping interesting things in the bud is safe, sure, but when you’re a nigh-invincible manifestation of never-ending energy, who cares about safety? 

“We’ve got something happening here, can’t you see? I mean, you’ve been visiting the spot of my fossilized former self nearly every night for the past 4 years. “

“You were a highly traumatic event in my life, Bill! I visited it in my _dreams_ and it’s called a _nightmare._ ”

“The line-” Bill uses his cane to draw a line in space between them. Dipper watches Bill with the sort of morbid fascination the Dream Demon warrants with even his most mundane actions. “-between dreams and reality is thinner than you meatbags think.” Bill pinches the line, and it dissolves.

“Well, I guess us meatbags are more predisposed to holding grudges over things like, say, I don’t know, _attempted apocalypses_ , than you think!”

“Oh, yes. That. It’s a shame, that would have been the party of the millennia. And in Little old Gravity Falls, my second-favorite place on Earth.”

“What’s the first?” Dipper mutters, more to himself than to Bill. 

“Well,” Bill explains reasonably, “you Oregonites haven’t built me any pyramids yet. Just a sock-puppet play. Which was surprisingly good, actually. Shooting-Star added some real _pizzaz._ Shame I wasn’t appreciated for my contributions, heh?” 

Dipper winces and rubs the top of his hand, _almost_ feeling the phantom prongs of the fork under his skin. He takes a deep breath. His body is his. 

“For now, kid.” 

“Get the fuck out of my head Bill. And stay out of Gravity Falls!” Dipper’s voice shakes a bit, and for once, he wishes it was a voice crack. “Egypt too, I guess.” He adds as an afterthought. 

“Heh. Pine tree, pine tree, pine tree...” Bill drolls playfully. He lounges in midair, and taps Dipper’s head lightly with his cane. Dipper jumps back as if he had been stung by a particularly aggressive bear-fly. 

“Didn’t even need your head for that one, kid! Your uninhibited body language of fear is adorable.” 

Bill’s eye narrows at the edges in the way that suggested a smile without a proper mouth. 

“Ynow, earlier-“ Bill conjures a tape measure with images of their conversation upon it like a film reel. He lets it slide between his hands until he reaches the desired section, points for Dipper to see, and tosses the item behind him. It disappears with a puff of smoke. 

“-I said you’d been dreaming about me every night. But that’s only on the nights you dream, isn’t it? Avoiding me, Pine Tree? You can’t be awake forever. Taking my rightful quality time from me; I’d say I’m being robbed.”

“This is officially the weirdest way someone has told me that I need to sleep more.” Dipper mutters, self-consciously rubbing at his black circles. 

“Really, kid. The whole ‘sleeping’ shtick was something I was very insistent upon at the introduction of complex carbon-based life forms. Needed to make sure I had an easy way _IN_.” At this, Bill shoots his hand through Dipper’s head and laughs at his expression, bordering between alarmed and intrigued. 

“Is that really the origin for the necessity of sleep? One moment, gotta write this down....” His tongue sticks out at the corner of his mouth in concentration as he pats himself down for a pen. 

“Knew you’d eat that up. See, we’re practically meant for each other? Just a couple of pals. Here, use this.” Bill tosses Dipper a ballpoint, which Dipper catches, drops, and quickly bends down to retrieve so that he can scribble his new discovery on his arm.

“I’m not stupid, Bill.” Dipper sighs, and above anything else he sounds _tired_ , the horror and wonder of Bill Cipher muted to an all-encompassing sense of weariness. Those are the words- _tired_ and _weary._ Dipper Pines is nearly sixteen years old, and already he is so _tired_ and _weary_ of Bill Cipher. 

But Bill is part of him now, whether he likes it or not. Bill Cipher should be satisfied by this. He’s not. 

“What’s your game? What’s your goal? Can you just cut to the nefarious plan for once instead of dragging out this..” he pauses for a second, thinking. His eyebrows scrunch. It’s a distinctly _human_ expression, a thing of skin and muscles and blood, so Bill isn’t quite sure why it seems like the most rare and awesome thing in the universe. 

Dipper wants to know what Bill’s _game_ is. To be completely honest, which is to say to be something he will never be, Bill has no fucking idea. 

Dipper clicks his tongue. “..this diabolical foreplay! That’s what this feels like-- like, get to the point man, so I can be an insomniac over _something_ instead of over the _promise_ of something.” 

“What if that was the point, Pine Tree? Maybe, and just entertain this hypothetical for a millisecond, this banter is what I really want from you. I’ve said it before-- I like you.” 

Dipper frowns, unmoved. “You’re a liar, Bill. You’ve said lots of things before. The only uniting factor they all have is that whatever they were, they weren't true. It’s like, a cosmic rule or something. Inter-Dimensional Physics, Law Number One- the ‘B’ in Bill Cipher stands for ‘bullshit.’” 

Bill chuckles, and it rattles in the very _stuff_ of the dream with an unearthly quality that accompanies everything he does. “That’s a pretty good one, Pine Tree. Might have to save it.” 

“Great.” Dipper sighs. “Now my intellectual property is being stolen along with my sanity.” 

“I’ll pay you royalties in deer teeth.” Bill quips casually, and a spray of white-tail molars clatters from the sky onto Dipper’s head, who winces and holds up his arms to shield himself from the downpour. 

“My bank won’t accept this.” He notes sadly, holding up a handful of teeth, and to Bill it is just about the best thing in the multitude of universes and planes of existence. Hate is a human construction, something that exists for the demon only in the abstract, but if this sort of stupid banter is part of hatred, Dipper can hate him all he wants. 

He doesn’t have the words to describe it, to describe the boy. And considering he has all of them, there probably aren’t any. This doesn’t bother him. Aversion to chaos and the nebulous is a human instinct, and Bill is just about the furthest sentient thing from it. 

“Whatever, I’m out.” Dipper says. 

“No, you are _not-”_ Bill begins, but already Dipper is holding his breath and opening his eyes as wide as he possibly can. Bill scrambles to strengthen the hold of the dream on the boy’s mind, but with Dipper being so lucid, there’s only so much he can do. Dipper’s dreamself dissolves like a sugar-cube in water. The color bleeds from the mindscape with it, verdant trees turning to yellowish sepia and then ash like an apocalyptic autumn. 

From the shadows of the forest, Mabel blinks out of her brother’s dream, her already-shaky hold on the plane slipping from under her as he wakes up. 

_Good Riddance._ Bill hopes she wakes up with dream-jet-lag. Serves her right for snooping. 

He’s malicious, though, not upset. He can spin this. _Call me Arachne, because I’ve been doing some weaving._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fate loves an underdog. That’s why I actively fuck up my life as much as possible.


	9. The Rind of the Mind

Again and again and again Mabel punches into her dreams. Never a particularly lucid dreamer, at first she struggles to even remember her goal or situation once the unreality of her dreams appears. The first time, she sleeps for four hours, only waking because she has to pee. 

In the bathroom mirror, she stares just at the edge of her reflection and tries not to sob. Then, she gulps some water and begins again. She didn’t raise herself to be a quitter, after all.

Her phone buzzes with new texts. She sets it to silent and flips it over without reading a word. 

By evening, her brain is so over saturated with the desire to dream in clarity that it relents by nature of not having recently thought of anything else. A brain embargo, if you will. 

Of course, her head aches like something that unfortunately does not exist, which is to say that it hurts more than anything else she has ever felt. And Mabel has felt an awful lot of head-related pain. A surprising and rather concerning amount, actually. Probably a few minor concussions in there, if one were to think about it. 

Which she isn’t, of course. She’s thinking  _Dream, Dream, Dipper, Dream_ ,  and then the paper-mache trees on her bedroom wall are melting and moving until she’s not in her bedroom anymore, or she is, or it’s something that feels like her bedroom but  isn’t. 

She isn’t exactly dreaming anymore, more than she’s balancing between awake and asleep. The space between her brain and skull feels swollen and hot like the cherry-echo of a solar eclipse. Her hands are separate from her wrists, and her arms separate from that, a million individual kingdoms in a useless federation. 

She has to forget that she’s dreaming, is the thing, or she’ll wake up. She has to remember that she’s dreaming, or she’ll get lost. It is a very difficult job for which she has no training manual. 

More than a few times, she stares at the pink of her bedroom wall, sweat peeling at her eyeshadow and dreams peeling at the rind of her mind and lips panting like she’s been in a fight and wonders why the hell she’s doing this. 

Dipper grins shyly from a Polaroid, fringe peeking over his eye. It’s a reminder. It’s a threat. It’s  _Dipper_. 

Again and again. Again, and again. The more shaky reality becomes, the more her dreams bend to her touch. 

She doesn’t have a plan, exactly. Mabel Pines is good at working in very purposeful steps with no clear destination. Color begins to flicker out of the neon-paradise of her mind, bit by bit. No, not  _fade_.  Be seen  _through_ ,  like a optical illusion explained and divided until breaking. Like the bones of a webpage laid in stark Arial as the CSS breaks. Like how contouring makes someone’s cheekbones look really pronounced in photos but then you see them in real life and it’s like ‘ _huh_ ’, and you brain can never quite parse their Instagram feed in the same way again. 

Her lips part into something between a grin and a grimace. It’s a bad sign, which is a good sign. 

Finally, after the world has been bleached to as near-white as she can see and stay sane, she stands upon the piled bones of her dreams and crosses her arms. 

“Bill Cipher!” She screams, “get your triangular-ass in here right now and explain yourself!” 

The words are swallowed by the dreamscape, utterly unregarded. Mabel sighs. She hadn’t really expected that to work, but it would have been nice. 

If she was Dipper, she would have known some elaborate ritual to follow and thousands of years of obscure-precedent and how they pertained to her and this situation. If she was Dipper, she would have known where to begin. 

But if she was Dipper, she would be being hit on by a sociopathic dream-demon and she wouldn’t even know it, so she should probably just count her blessings. 

Beliefs about twins abound—they’re blessed, they’re cursed, they know a language of only their own, they’re opposites, they’re two halves of a whole, but among them all, one thing is the same—twins are connected. Deep in the marrow of her bones, in the curls of her hair, in wrinkles of her brain, she knows her brother—parts of her carved out for him, spaces in her where she ends and he begins. 

Mabel is not an expert on the supernatural, or dreams, but she is enough of Dipper to spread her fingers into the space between their minds and  reach. 

Mabel slips into Dipper’s mind like a key ina lock. 

She only realizes she doesn’t breath in her dreams when she feels the moment when her breath would have caught. Bill Cipher hovers over a pine-glade, unmistakably bright against the cool green of the needles and grass. 

She would describe it as ‘blinding’, but it wouldn’t be a bright enough word. 

Dipper is just distant enough to render his face hazy under the rim of his hat, but she can picture it clearly from the nearly-sixteen years of body language he’s showing. It’s almost comforting, to know that Bill is almost certainly getting chewed-out like a politician stopped in the street by an elderly jewish woman. 

He’s wearing that stupid hat and puffy-vest she’d been embarrassed to be seen near for four summers past. The implication that that is what he’s always wearing in his soul, or whatever, is almost as terrifying as the fact that he’s consorting with a maniacal being of pure energy and destruction. Is that how this works?  _ Probably _ . She only kind of skimmed the stuff about souls and dreams at the witch-gem-asian-exotification shop in the local mall. Mostly she’d been shoplifting tiny pieces of amethyst in the oversized sleeves of her top. 

Bill is laughing now, and she wants to punch him in the face- er, eye. She’d settle for knocking off his stupid top-hat. 

It’s at this point that her lack of plan catches up to her. The array of options form a council in her mind, each boldly asserting their claim. 

Confront Cipher, and lose her advantage of surprise. Try to signal to Dipper, and risk him trying to do something stupid to protect her. Just watch helplessly in the grayish-unreal light of the endless pines as disaster slowly plays out before her. 

After a moment, the dream dissolves. A moment more, and on the bed, curling up into her own side, Mabel does too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unpeel brain like tangerine for fruit stimulus reward


	10. Close Encounters of the Kind Not Suited for Numerical Measurement

The thing about summoning demons is that most people get it at least a little bit wrong. An average of 38% wrong, to be exact. It’s simply unavoidable—in between dead languages and translations that would make the original speakers glad of their deadness, shit gets what the scholarly community likes to call ‘messed-up’. 

Kyle Bridgman of Mariposa, California, however, blows these statistics out of the metaphorical water when he gets an almost-impressive 93% of his pathetic, haphazard demon summoning wrong on some overcast spring day. 

Bill Cipher would almost be offended, if it wasn’t so convenient. No, not _offended—disappointed,_ maybe. 

_Perhaps,_ he considers, _the Pines had heightened his expectations for supernatural-curious mortals to an unreasonable degree._

Either way, this human is going on and on and on about some _gold planning operation_ and _tourists_ and _income_. 

This is one of Kyle Bridgeman’s more grievous errors—lack of clear _motive_. Proper dealings with the supernatural are notoriously exact—one wrong word, a vague deal, and some demon or other will take your handshake and the rest of you too. Summon Bill Cipher without knowing what you want, and he’ll decide for you. 

“Mariposa-“ Bill interrupts the man. “That means BUTTERFLY in Spanish, ynow?” 

Bridgeman stops short, bewildered. 

“Yes,” he replies after a moment. “I know. I’ve lived here my whole life.” 

This is not even the slightest bit true. Bridgeman had grown up in a part of LA where the palms were always one drought away from browning enough that the breeze swept them away. After failing high-school, he had fled to the remote town of Mariposa to escape retribution by an apathetic justice system for dealing and distribution of marijuana. 

Bill Cipher, of course, knows that Bridgeman is lying, but this is not what offends him. Bill Cipher loves lying! He loves lying so much that he has been the primary sponsor of the Dishonesty Olympics for the fourth millennia in a row: It is, once again, the lack of _purpose_ that rubs sand in his bricks— this meat-bag lies because he is _confused_ , because it makes the horror of the universe _neat_. Bill has never despised anything more. 

The world starts burning on a lukewarm day sometime in April, with heavy clouds whispering promises of rain they have intentions to keep. It starts burning in Mariposa, California—luckily for a certain being of eternal energy, it is a place where a bit of wildfire is accustomed by most. 

Bridgeman’s final mistake had been agreeing to do a little _work_ for the dream demon. 

It’s all work, in the physics-oriented sense of the word. 

Bill Cipher spends four minutes and thirteen seconds getting the hang of whistling for the six-thousandth time, dusts off his newly acquired body, and whistles a jaunty little tune as he gets to work. 

It goes like this—eight minutes after his bodily acquisition, Bill Cipher steals a car. Or rather, he uses Kyle Bridgeman’s, which raises all sorts of fascinating ethical questions in the yet-unexplored legal frontier of Demonic-Possession Related Criminal Liability. 

He only crashes thrice, which he figures is pretty good, considering he never passed the exam. Only one of those crashes results in an explosion, which Bill finds rather disappointing. 

As he lays star-fished in the thorny shrubs to the left of CA I-580 looking like a piece of particularly large roadkill, Bill takes a moment to thank the brilliant human ingenuity of the 21st century—they always were, it seemed, creating new and more exciting ways to experience pain.

Even in the shadow of a rising mushroom cloud, there are things to be thankful for. As Bill feels the cells in his cornea commit mass suicide, he finds that a pair of sunglasses remain stubbornly strung along the seam of his host’s shirt. 

“It’s always the _eyes?_ Why is it always the eyes?” He mutters as he puts himself together and begins to walk. 

It is not like the movies. Dipper does not read about the explosion in a fateful headline— his father stubbornly reads the newspaper every Sunday morning in his bedroom in a fit of counter-culture identity maintenance. Dipper doesn’t see it on the news, because their household had cut cords with their cable provider three months prior. He does not read about it on his social media feed, because his are artfully curated to a pristine state of conspiracy-discussion and possible ABBA reunion dates, the latter of which tends to fall within the former. At the Oakland Public Library, he actually manages to ignore no fewer than fourteen possible-conversations in which to overhear the news. 

In fact, in the fervor of his single-minded pursuit of research regarding his little triangular problem, he manages to circumvent all discussion of Bill’s explosion whatsoever, a fact that proves that even incomprehensibly powerful beings of pure-energy have off-days. 

It’s only the all-too-familiar smell of ozone covered in shoplifted cologne that breaks his focus.

Quickly positioning himself in front of his pile of texts and shoving his notebook under his thighs, he looks up guiltily, half-expecting to see Grunkle Stan (a Pavlovian reaction to the scent of an explosion). 

Instead, there is a young man in sunglasses and a bright green jacket with the tag still on the sleeve. He is looking at Dipper, probably. It’s hard to tell with the glasses. 

_Maybe he’s blin_ d, Dipper thinks and he suddenly feels a little bad. 

“Can I help you, man?” The man keeps staring for a moment, swaying a little like a building in an earthquake. 

_Maybe he’s lost,_ Dipper thinks, and immediately dismisses the idea. There’s a _purpose_ to this man’s presence— he knows what he is here to do, and at least is very confident that he will when the time comes. 

“I think,” the man says with a strange, slow cadence “that you can.” He gives Dipper a close-lipped smile. It is a smile that is too wide for the mouth that holds it.

There’s something in his voice that makes Dipper uneasy— not the voice itself, nor the _accent_ necessarily, but the _rhythm_ of the words. It rings faintly in his head like something from a dream. 

“Does this here establishment,” the man waves his arms at the surrounding stacks with good humor, “have any books on demons?” 

Usually, this question would be asked with a modicum of shame or at the very least with some sort of explaining qualifier, but the man just raises his eyebrow at Dipper like a challenge and waits. 

“Yes!” Dipper answers, a little too loudly. A nearby woman glances his way, and he winces. “Yes, but, um.” He glances to the stack of books behind him and inwardly curses his luck for such an awkward situation. “I’m using them.” 

The man’s face twitches as he tries to raise his eyebrow and finds he had already done so. It’s frustrating, only having two, strictly no more and no less. You have to ration their use wisely. 

“All of them?” 

“Yes.” Dipper winces apologetically. “It’s kind of important.” 

The man shrugs and he- well, he doesn’t exactly sit down more than he simply crumples to his location on the carpet. 

_Okay_ , Dipper thinks. _So either he’s a supernatural being, or I’m just being ableist._

“What’s the issue, kid?” He throws his arms behind his neck like a person who hasn’t quite gotten the hang of the gesture yet— he leans against them for a moment, apparently decides against it, and holds them in his lap. 

“Don’t call me that.” Dipper says without any real venom. “Anyway, I’ve got a bit of a-“ he looks around, then lowers his voice. “ _demon problem._ ”

The man’s expression doesn’t change— he does not seem particularly alarmed or impressed. Dipper sighs in relief. 

“To be honest, I’m exactly sure he’s a demon, or whether that’s just what he’s called for lack of a better word— he is different from other demons I’ve read about, more _powerful_ , less _human-_ “

“Careful,” the man interrupts “you’ll flatter him.” 

Dipper wrinkles his nose. “Oh, god. Probably. Anyway, he wants to— oh, well-“ He shoves his hands into the pits of his elbows. 

“Well?” 

“He kind of wants to kill me and my whole family. And a bunch of other people. And use the Earth as a kind of inter-dimensional rave venue? I was kind of distracted by the time he got to the last part.” The stranger doesn’t laugh, which immediately raises Dipper’s opinion of him. He just looks at Dipper, his lips long and thoughtful. Finally, he asks—

“And what are you going to do about it?” 

Dipper’s shoulders sag. 

“I have no idea.” The weight of his situation doesn’t grow any lighter, but there’s a small relief to be found in being able to say it-- a secret is its own battle. 

The man starts humming and drumming his fingers restlessly against a bookshelf. A mother with a toddler stops fussing over the child’s clothes to glare at him. He ignores it. 

“Somehow,” he muses with a nod towards the pile of books accumulated behind him “I find it hard to believe you’ve got nothing.” 

Dipper chews the nail of his thumb. Then, he admits—

“There’s a way that worked before. But it requires certain people. I really, _really_ , need to solve this quietly.” 

“How many times has this method been used against him before? If you know, obviously.” The last part is said like he thinks it is something very funny. Dipper shivers. 

“Two— I know that for certain, I think. Why, do you know something?” 

Again, the man grins that too-wide smile. This time, it has teeth. 

“Oh, I know _lots_ of things.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _folks warn you about living in the past but baby,  
>  i'm living in the future.  
> everytime your hand is in mine,  
> I can't stop thinking that even love gets killed with time. _


	11. Global Warming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey I wanted to use the title Negative Capability for another fic so this is titled 'Devil You Know' now. That was my original title idea anyway lol <3

Never let anyone say that Mabel Pines doesn’t use her platform for important issues. 

**heyyyybell** Does anyone know any ways to kill a demon/Interdimensional monster/annoying guy? I’m not joking btw. Free Mabel-Juice stickers or Ultra-Glitter Lipgloss to anyone who DMs me something that works. Thanks a lot!!! XXX

After a moment of consideration, she makes a second post. 

**heyyybell** under $1000 please regarding my last post lol 💕💕

The DM’s come in. A few are the usual fans starting a conversation with no hope of seeing a reply, an upsetting amount are not safe for work, most are facetious, and one, just _one_ holds promise. 

  
  
  


Dipper has learned by now that, generally speaking, the more someone claims to know about the supernatural, the less they do. 

But he’s also learned that inside every story about magic, there is a story about fate, and fate is a petty _asshole_. 

So he gives the man a chance, because it’s the sort of off-chance-meeting the universe would love to make him sorry for missing. 

He runs through the short version, which at twenty minutes, is long enough to deter most casual enthusiasts. 

The man listens without comment, though his face is twitching like he constantly like he means to say something, and then thinks better of it. 

“Thoughts?” Dipper finishes, and the man vibrates excitedly for a moment more, before starting with—

“If you had to describe this guy on, like, a personal level, how would it go?” 

Dipper blinks. “I, uh-“

The man cackles, waving a hand sharply through the air. “That’s the problem, kid! It’s _intent_ — for the prophecy to work, you’ve got to want it to. You’d slam a beer with this evil-Frank-Sinatra—“ 

_What about this story said ‘Frank Sinatra’?_ Dipper thinks. 

“—you’d subscribe to his streaming service, fuck, you think he’s interesting. You don’t want him to go away, at least not enough to matter.” 

The man leans back, tapping his finger against his cheek. Possibly he meant to go for the chin, but hadn’t realized he missed. Maybe it’s a counter-culture thing. California is weird. Not Gravity Falls-weird, but another, more distinctly _human_ sort. It makes Dipper nervous. 

“First of all, gross-“ Dipper begins, and man makes a twirling motion with his hands that, despite the sunglasses, clearly conveys that he is rolling his eyes, “Second of all, _fuck you_ , you don’t even _know_ me-“ The twirling hands transform into blabbering mouths. 

“Look kid,” he interrupts, “you can believe me, or you can act stupid—“ His lips keep moving as if he means to finish with some sort of a qualifier, but no words come out. Finally, he just purses his lips in a slow, disconcerting way, and turns without another word. As he shambles out of the library, Dipper watches him put a hand under a sanitizer dispenser and then slick it through his hair like gel. 

“Ooooookay.” Dipper breathes out quietly, attempting to reorient himself and finding it impossible, on account of the fact that he had been disoriented before the man’s arrival and probably would be until this whole deal with Cipher was sorted out. 

_Or I die_ , his mind reminds him helpfully. 

_Or I die_ , he agrees, less cheerfully. 

Dipper figures he must be going crazy, because he crosses out ‘Prophecy’ with a few thick strokes of his pen. 

There’s something familiar and wary twitching under his skin— his foot bobs up and down anxiously. The hum of the fluorescents is _too loud, too purposeful_ — he’s missing something. Something _obvious_. Something _important_. 

A half-finished triangle peeks from the margin of the page— one side, two sides, a third, stopped. The faint-blue lining cuts through the picture like a closed eye. 

Dipper lets the notebook fall shut. He’s got a feeling that whatever he’s missing, he won’t find it in here. 

It’s the beginning of April, the first day of real heat this year, and the air outside the Oakland Public Library hits Dipper like something he can swim through. 

For a moment, all worries regarding Bill are dissolved in favor of one, overpowering thought— _Fuck, it’s hot._

 _  
_Dipper just stands there, feeling the last remnants of air-conditioning melt from his skin. A woman cradling a cell-phone between her shoulder and ear walks around him without looking up.

In retrospect, Dipper figures she probably was the one who screamed. In the present, it’s a shrill, bird-like thing that shocks Dipper out of his stupor like an electric-shock. 

For a moment, he scans the sky, palm pressed over his brows— surely, it had been the dying keen of some parched hawk— until the woman’s yelling becomes recognizable human speech. 

He finds her crouched delicately over a body, half-submerged in the shrubbery of a drought-resistant community-garden. 

“Call 9-1-1.” She orders him shrilly, hands hovering indecisively over a damp, spreading patch in the body’s shirt. 

_You’re the one on your phone,_ he thinks _, do it yourself_ — but already he’s fumbling for his cell, screen damp with sweat. 

There is something to be said for summers spent investigating the paranormal and unknown— the route to dialing for an ambulance is one his fingers are very, very accustomed to. He doesn’t even bother to unlock the phone, going straight for the emergency-call feature.

“911, what’s your emergency?” 

“I’m outside the Oakland Public Library, there’s a—“ he steps closer, trying to parse the situation. 

There’s a moment of disconnect, of blissful, neutral comprehension, and then there’s the _shock_ , dousing him like ice-water. 

“Sir?” The dispatcher asks, and shoved between the shock and heat and Bill hanging over it all there is a resilient poke of gender euphoria. _Cool,_ he thinks. _I’m a ‘sir’ now._

“He’s bleeding.” The woman calls out in his direction— she’s apparently overcome her reluctance to touch the wound, and has unraveled a decorative scarf from her neck to press against the man’s chest. 

Against a familiar man’s chest. The sunglasses have been knocked to the tip of his nose, revealing a pair of near-lidded eyes. There is no capricious jest in his expression now— just _pain_ , and a lot of it. 

“Dude, who _are_ you?” Dipper demands. 

“I don’t think he can speak.” The woman bites out. “Can you talk to 911 and try to search his pockets at the same time?” 

“He’s a man, bleeding from his chest and—“ Dipper squints “...his leg, too. I think he’s unconscious.”

The dispatch says something about stoppage and pressure in a tone of meticulous calm, but Dipper is locked on the man’s flickering eyes, locking with some effort onto his own. 

“... _you.”_ He gasps out, and Dipper feels something sick crawl along the inside of his skin. 

“Scratch that.” He amends weakly. “He’s conscious.” 

Already he can hear sirens cutting through the heat-soaked murmur of the city, but Dipper is watching the dark spot spread through and beyond the scarf, soaking neon green with cherry like some sick sort of Christmas decoration, and he knows this— for whomever this man is, two miles is a long, long ways away. 

He’s forced himself closer, crouching a few inches from the stranger’s shoulder— now that he’s really looking at it, he’s seeing that there’s something deeply wrong, joints budging the fabric with all the wrong angles. 

“...who are you?” The man forces out, and the woman assures that _help is on the way_ and _see, we can hear the sirens now,_ but he isn’t looking at her. His pupils seem like just another aspect of the hallucinatory heat, shivering in their sockets like asphalt at high-noon. 

There’s a million things he needs to say and barely enough time for any of them, so he only thinks for a moment before— 

“Was he a triangle?” 

The woman is making a confused noise but it’s smothered by the sudden fervor to the man’s tone—

“ _Yes—_ do you know him?” His breath rattles like— well, Dipper doesn’t want to think it. 

“Yeah— look, me too?” He holds out his arm, watches the man’s eyes latch onto the fork-scars. 

_And I’m still here,_ goes unsaid. The man closes his eyes just as the ambulance arrives. 

Dipper clears the block before they start asking questions. 

**abberantGalahad** if you’re being serious

I’ve got something that might work 

It’s in Danish though

So let me translate 

. . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _heart clamped into a fist, mouth dry,  
>  eyes wrung out like an old towel.  
> you are teaching me all the wrong things about love. _


	12. Growing Pains

The half-eaten Lo-Mein stares up at him from it’s oil-soaked cardboard box. Usually, it would be a great night. It’s a Saturday, his parents both got off early, and to boot, they got Chinese. They’re not even putting up a real fight about him and Mabel eating on the couch. 

But Mabel’s giving him a look Dipper recognizes as being full of determination to get to the bottom of whatever he’s hiding. Because he has, of course, committed to hiding Bill from her; after all, if he told her now, over a week since he’d reappeared, what would she think? That he’s irresponsible, at best, irredeemable at worst. 

He’s got enough to worry about, what with Bill and school and. Well, just those two things, but they’re pretty big things. One is a traumatizing, inevitable entity with the power to easily destroy him forever, and the other is a mean triangle in a top-hat. 

So needless to say, he’s got enough on his plate to be able to afford worrying about Mabel’s poking around too. 

“I’m going to bed.” Dipper says, getting up to place his container on the counter. His mother looks up from her Buddha’s delight, eyebrows creased—

“Are you alright, honey? You’ve hardly eaten. Do you not like Lo Mein anymore? I tried to get what you’ve ordered before.” 

“No, it’s— it’s fine, I’m just not hungry. I’ll put it in the fridge for lunch tomorrow, okay?” 

“Alright, honey.” She murmurs, attention returning to her food. 

For better or worse, his parents are barely part of the equation. He could grow a third arm, and they probably wouldn’t notice. He did that once, in Gravity Falls, after an encounter with a particularly potent growth-stone. It had been incredibly useful, once he had gotten the hang of it— even Wendy had seemed impressed; he’d mostly grown out of his crush by then, but platonic or not, validation from Wendy Corduroy hits like a drug. Of course, any vestiges of it had probably been destroyed when the limb fell off a week later, and he sobbed grossly and gave it a Viking funeral in the lake. 

He’s just about to retire to his room and do anything but sleep when his father makes a attentive noise in the direction of the television and his mother lets out a hushed _ ‘my god’ _ . 

Dipper’s spine goes cold. Blocking out the news-scroll, the weather, the million other flashing components, he studies the photo on the screen. With a sinking stomach, he confirms his suspicion— it is the man from the library. 

His father is saying something about an explosion, and his mother is making noises of agreement through a full mouth, and the news anchor is talking, talking, talking,  _ monetary damage  _ and  _ road delays  _ but all Dipper can hear is this—

“Kyle Bridgeman, CA I-580 explosion suspect, was found in critical condition outside Oakland Public Library and taken to the Atla Bates Summit Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.” 

Nausea rises in his throat—  _ dead. Dead. Dead.  _

Bill killed a person, he found Dipper, and he talked to him— 

Before he knows it, Dipper is curled over the upstairs toilet hacking out guilt, his guts, and roughly 5 ounces of Lo Mein. 

The door clicks shut. Mabel’s voice cuts through the haze— “Do you have something you want to tell me?” 

He wretches, once, twice, before answering— “Must have been food poisoning.” 

He can sense her disbelieving look without having the look up. “Oh  _ really _ ? Cus I’m the star of the home-economics department, and food poisoning takes hours to set in.” 

_ She’s the star,  _ Dipper thinks, and hurls air. 

“You’re sick because you feel guilty.” Mabel informs him, arms crossed “Because you’re hiding something.” 

Dipper fakes another spasm. He can’t meet her gaze. 

Finally, she slides down beside him on the tile-floor. Her shoes are bubblegum-pink platforms, and they seem almost comically incongruous to the situation— his world’s gone deep into the bad-side of weird, and here’s his sister, dressed like a magical-girl. 

“Flush the fucking toilet.” She says. “You’re done heaving.” 

He is, in fact, ‘done heaving’, and even if he hadn’t been, he might have by virtue of her tone alone. Dipper flushes the toilet. 

“Okay,” she says, studiously picking at her cuticles. “Can we go to my room now? Because we have an important conversation with to make, and I don’t really feel like having it next to a toilet.” 

He silently follows her to her bedroom, guilt worming it’s way through his stomach and socks. 

Mabel stops to adjust the strung-up fairy-lights from orange to white, retorting his incredulous look with— “Mood-lighting. Read an interior design blog for once.” 

Dipper thinks— _ If that’s the solution for all of this, I think I’d just rather die.  _

His sister sprawls out like a star-fish on her comforter, tossing an arm over her eyes. 

“Dipper?” She sighs. 

“Yeah?” His throat feels impossibly tight. He should have bought a bowl, in case he throws up again. 

“I know about Bill.” She doesn’t sound angry— well, maybe a little bit— but mostly just tired.

Dipper’s lungs and limbs lock with unadulterated panic, shame pricking his face so deeply it turns into a sort of head-ache. He closes his eyes, the after-image of the fairy-lights burning a dizzying constellation on underside of his lids. 

“ _ What- _ “ he squeaks out. He’s not sure whether he should try to sound confused or casual; he naturally fails to achieve either. 

“Don’t bother denying it; I saw him while dreaming.” A moment later, she sits up and pats the spot beside her on the bed. She won’t look at him. “Sit down, you doofus.” It’s clear that she’s trying to lighten the mood, but it isn’t working very well. It’s not something his sister is used to; situations she cannot really brighten. 

Dipper sits, and when his sister’s hand finds his, he curls his fingers to meet it. 

They sit there in silence for a moment, savoring the possible words to say on their tongues. When Mabel opens her mouth, Dipper expects hers to be  _ I’m going to tell Ford _ or  _ How could you _ or  _ Why won’t you let him go _ , but instead she asks—

“Do you have it under control?” 

“No.” Dipper answers honestly. 

He sees her nod slightly in the corner of his eye. She doesn’t look alarmed, but Dipper knows she is— she’s just not surprised; there’s the sense that this is a conversation she’s already turned over and over in her head until the edges round. 

She’s always been better at dealing with panic than Dipper; he wonders vaguely whether she was supposed to be the supernatural investigator, and him the extroverted creative, and their current situation is just a big, cosmic misunderstanding. 

_ No _ , he decides.  _ If that was true, Bill already would have mocked it.  _

“Why don’t we use the prophecy again?” She asks, eyebrows knitted. “I can call them all— if it’s Bill, I’m sure they’ll understand.” 

Dipper’s words catch in his throat. He thinks about Bill’s words at the library—  _ for the prophecy to work, you’ve got to want it to.  _

It’s not that he doesn’t want it to work. It’s just that he’s got the sinking feeling that’s not the  _ only _ thing he wants, and he knows magic takes to mixed signals like elemental sodium takes to water. 

His mind is turning, turning, turning, leaving his better self in the dust, and before he knows it he’s saying— “It won’t work a third time. Three is... it’s his number of power, or whatever. Like an UNO reverse card.” 

Mabel’s eyes widen. “Oh.” She whispers. “Is there anything I can do?” 

Dipper doesn’t want to meet her eyes— he’s terrified he will find them wet, and this guilt that’s rooted in his gut will tear itself out into something awful like the truth. So he just says—

“I really don’t know.” He feels her shoulders slump, because if he doesn’t know what to do, who will? 

Finally, she says quietly, voice wet— “I want to say something, but you have to promise to not be weird about it.” 

“I’m weird about most things.” Dipper admits, and it earns him the ghost of a laugh. 

“I meant— don’t get offended, I guess. But don’t be all weird and apologetic either. I just— I just want you to know.” 

“Okay.” He manages. “Hit me.” 

“This is going to sound crazy,” she begins, and Dipper thinks  _ has anything not, lately?  _ “but I don’t think I’m even crying over Bill. Like, I guess maybe it just hasn’t set in yet, that he’s back, but I can’t stop thinking about how you didn’t tell me about it, and what that means about us, and—“ her voice breaks off. Dipper’s ears are ringing. 

“I guess the idea of us growing apart is scarier to me than a global apocalypse. I’m fucking terrified, just saying that. I’m scared of thinking about it.” She finishes. When she’s done, her voice opens and closes again like a beached fish, like she’s got something else to say, but she isn’t sure how to find the right words. 

“And?” Dipper asks, voice thick. 

“It’s just—we’ve seen so much crazy, dangerous stuff in Oregon that I’ve grown kind of desensitized, I guess, and if the world burns under an evil triangle, that’s just something that happens. But us not being  _ us _ ... I didn’t think it was a possibility, had never thought to be scared of it, and now that it feels like it’s happening I’m just— I feel like a little kid, where something happens and it just becomes your whole world, y’now?” 

“Yeah.” He responds. “I think I do.” 

He’s not just thinking about her when he says it, and he knows that’s the point. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You look into the void, and find it has teeth. It also has a soft underbelly and seven palms with calluses at the contact-spots. Everything you fear is made up of so many little things.  
> 


	13. Three Pillars

Pine Tree is prepared, this time. There is not even a hint of surprise to his features when Bill descends upon his nascent dream like a shark to blood. 

Unfortunately, the demon doesn’t get enough time to weigh the merits of this new development, because Dipper starts out yelling and only gets more heated in the meantime. 

“—seriously man, stay the  _ fuck  _ away from my sister, or I swear to God—“

“Oath accepted.” Bill notes. In the inertia of his fury, it takes Pine-Tree a few more sentences for the words to register. When he does—

“Oh _ hell-fucking-no _ , that does not count as a deal and you know it!” 

“ **I KNOW EV-“**

“Yeah, yeah, you know everything, blah-blah-blah.” The human interrupts, making a mocking motion with his hand “Apparently you don’t know this— you are  _ not  _ Frank Sinatra, you never  _ will  _ be Frank Sinatra—“

Cipher, who has predictive abilities of relative clarity, stashes this particular bit away for future use. 

“Just— _ leave us alone _ , Bill, and hey, I know that won’t work, but at least I’m making my intentions clear—“ 

The demon considers Dipper’s words— _ leave us alone. _ It is, of course, the last thing he wants to do, but if there is one thing Bill knows about Pine-Tree with any certainty, it’s this— his Pine-Tree can’t know something miraculous exists and not  _ yearn  _ for it. 

“Okay.” Bill says. “See you never, kid!” 

The dream snaps shut like the crack of a whip. 

Bill gives it three days before his favorite flesh-bag comes crawling back. In the meantime, he has some reintroductions to make.

The Nightmare-Realm is probably best described as being reminiscent of one of those images designed to replicate the experience of a stroke-- or, if the viewer has personal experience-- as being a splitting-image of the experience itself. It’s all nearly-tangible shapes, on the edge of something you recognize, but not quite.

It’s said that the greatest abstract artists honed their craft after being shown a glimpse of this interdimensional-foam; it’s said by Bill, specifically, who still thinks he should be credited by the Met for his work-- the only difference between a Picasso and an average Joe is a little bit of amorphous terror. 

The most important thing, though, is that the Nightmare-Realm is home to Bill’s closest friends. ‘Friends’, in this instance, is used as a word meaning ‘Does not shoot-on-sight’ or possibly ‘stupid and powerful enough to leave the cowering for special occasions’. 

Like Teeth, here, who despite any visible apparatus of vision, is the first to notice Bill’s presence. He is running towards said Demon and clicking very loudly; the clacks are either  _ excited  _ or  _ furious _ , or perhaps there is not enough difference between the two for it to matter. 

“Hey  _ Diente!  _ Three years, no see!” Bill laughs. “Get it? Because you have no eyes!” 

The clacking is definitely angry now.  _ Unfortunately _ , Bill realizes,  _ I am probably going to have to resort to drastic measures.  _ Such a shame. He hates performing surgical procedures on friends. 

“Surprise root-canal!” He bellows. A stray party-banner tears. Everyone’s eyes, or ears, or devices of exhalation, are upon him now. 

_ Bill?  _ Somebody whispers, and the name ripples throughout the crowd like a shock-wave. 

Bill grasps Teeth with a flick of his hand, holding him mid-foam. 

“Looky-here,” he begins, giving his friend a little rattle. “I understand that there is probably some dissatisfaction with the  _ state. of. things.”  _ With each of these final words, he flips Teeth inwards like a hinge. The sickly cracking of tendons rustles over the hushed group like the snapping of a dry bundle of twigs. 

“But luckily,  _ BILL IS BACK, BABY.” _ He allows one tooth to slide out his dear friend’s jaw and tosses it into the crowd like a wedding-bouquet. The muted hisses of a scuffle for the token sound from the underbelly of the gathering. 

He had promised a root canal, after all. He wasn’t even going to charge— the nightmare dimension’s universal healthcare simply cannot be beat. America ought to take note. 

“Admittedly, there were some unexpected difficulties regarding our takeover. For example, one of the eye-bats, yes  _ you, Bernard,  _ flew into a gelato stand and spent the rest of the night wearing pistachio-flavor as a hat, which was  _ completely  _ undignified and contrary to dress-code.” 

The aforementioned bat hides behind its wings. 

“But luckily,” Bill continues, “since I am a kind and magninimous ruler, all is forgiven. That’s all. Further updates will be sent via the group-chat.” 

He lets Teeth clash back towards the ground, a disgraced pile of enamel and fleshy gum-bits. 

He’ll be fine, probably. Or not. Who cares. 

Bill Cipher would give ‘demagogue’ a solid 4 out of 5 on Glassdoor.con. 

Luckily, most of the realm is too desperate, too stupid, or too fearful to give a shit about the invasion’s failure. Already he knows that people are spreading excuses, and proponents are spreading fist-sandwiches, and all he has to do is sit back and  _ watch _ .

It’s not like it’s the first time. Well, the third time’s the charm, he supposes. 

Except now he’s got to actually  _ figure out _ attempt three, and humans are unfortunately getting pretty wise to ‘massive portals’. 

_ What’s up,  _ comes from beside him, or inside him. It’s never quite clear with Amorphous Shape. 

See, the thing is the guy can’t  _ talk,  _ so he communicates directly via transmission of ideas to a receiver’s conscious. Of course, the problem with this sort of conversation is that one can never be sure whether an idea or thought comes from Shape, or from oneself. In fact, it’s entirely possible, although unlikely, that Shape had never made social overtures to begin with, and that all claims to the contrary were actually Freudian wars of the inner psyche. 

“Great to see ya, Amorphous Shape!” Bill greets, because he is many things, but he generally doesn’t consider himself  _ rude.  _ He has a top-hat, after all— he’s got to stay on-brand. 

_ You’ve hardly touched your time-giant spinal-fluid, man, what’s on your eye?  _

Bill considers. There is the obvious answer, which is ‘eyelashes’, and there is the standard answer, which is ‘Earth-Realm Annexation’, and then there is the one he really wants to talk about. 

“Dipper Pines.” He answers, slurping back a biological trophy of a functionally-extinct race. 

_ That’s the biological remnant of the other one you liked, right?  _

“They generally call them ‘nephews’. And Sixer was a passing interest.” 

_ That’s why you went on an inter-dimensional rampage when he broke up with you, right?  _

“Nah. I planned that one a millennia in advance.” Bill lies. 

Amorphous gives him a disbelieving flicker. 

For a few moments, they just hover there, waiting for the other to give. 

“It’s his  _ fucking  _ sister, the Shooting-Star—“ Bill whines, his bricks reassembling irritably. “I tried to seed interpersonal strife, and they  _ confessed _ to each other, like they have a nearly unbreakable relationship based upon time and mutual trust, or something!” 

Amorphous Shape folds his components sympathetically. 

“He doesn’t even think he wants to interact with me unless I have some nefarious plan for him to unravel.” Bill continues. 

_ Don’t you? _

“Obviously, but still! Maybe a guy just wants to play Quiplash sometimes-- the interdimensional version, where you can submit indescribable concepts and sounds of horror and ecstasy along with standard written answers.” 

The bartender, a creature with entirely too many arms and entirely too few food and alcohol handling certifications, places a stone chalice in front of Amorphous Shape. It is full of what appears to be entirely ordinary lava of the felsic variety. Either his friend had made a purchase, or the tender has some sort of subtle hankering. 

There’s a moment of emptiness, and then--

_ Well, what does he want? The human, I mean.  _

Like most questions, Bill knows all the answers, but he struggles to put words to the most important ones. 

“Discovery.” He says finally. “Mental enrichment. Recognition. Occasionally, hot-pockets.” 

Put like that, it seems rather obvious to everyone but the parties involved that Bill could very easily be talking about himself. Like most primordial entities predating time, Bill’s existence is essentially driven by fear of three words--  _ gone _ ,  _ alone _ , and  _ bored _ . 

Like most mortals, Dipper Pines has been forced to accept, or at least willfully ignore, the first, found himself remarkably vulnerable to the second and is constantly consumed by a lowly-simmering existential-soup of the third. 

_ You ever run a zoo?  _

Bill laughs. “You don’t  _ want  _ to know-- just tell me where you’re going with this, pal!”

_ It’s like a zoo. You have to throw enrichment in the enclosure, or they start ignoring you or eating you or gnawing their own limbs off.  _

The latter two sound rather fascinating, if a bit inconvenient, but the first prospect is so objectionable as to render Bill’s curiosity mute. 

“Any specific ideas in mind?” Bill asks, running his cane through his friend’s body in a jovial rupture. The particles scatter wildly, and then drift lazily back into orbit. 

_ You know that psychic, the one between nightmares and the hazy-future? The one with the really nice cloak?  _

“Know  _ of  _ the gal, sure. I try to steer clear of future-Earth. Lot of squares.”

_ She’s not actually  _ **_in_ ** _ future-earth, just in the cracks of semi-nightmare between it. For tax-break reasons.  _

A gambler and swindler at heart, this motivation warms Bill’s opinion of her considerably. 

_ She’s having a 15%-off sale through 2040. Maybe she’ll help you brainstorm. Use my referral code, though-- AMORPH. Got that? A-M- _

“You know what,” Bill interrupts thoughtfully “maybe I will.” He points towards the still-full chalice of magma. 

“You gonna drink that?” He asks, and without waiting for an answer, he grabs it and sets his eye-mouth sizzling. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _In my dreams, we are swimming in the lake,  
>  the sunshine-water blue-gray cool.   
> There is a high laugh, the frantic shriek of the stars;   
> pebbles and silt shifting beneath our feet.   
> The water closes gently over my head,  
> like a lover's embrace--  
> In my dreams, I never break the surface. _


End file.
